Kyle:

The group of kids met up with Xao eventually as well. The dynamics of everyone were so weird. Jessica and myself could have beaten anyone in that house in a fair fight, but whenever roughhousing of any kind ensued, usually caused by Jessica I might add, she and I would end up at their mercy as we couldn't use our weapons or powers.

After dinner and dessert, all us kids went up to Jaden's room to play a board game called "Aggravation". Well, that was the theory anyway.

At Jessica's first roll, she looked up, twisting her face a little. "Sorry, we didn't bring any presents."

Jaden sat against his bed. "That's okay, you guys being here is present enough, I know you don't have any money."

Jessica loudly proclaimed, "Awwwww! You're so innocent and sweet." To which Jaden immediately blushed and hid his face. "Ya know we did kill a rabbit, we could have brought that and said the corpse was a present."

"You killed a bunny?" asked Jezreel, apparently appalled. She gave us a pleading lip. "Truly?"

"We had to eat," Xao interjected.

"You still killed a bunny," Jezreel said, giving the three of us a half-serious half-joking glare.

"I'm still trying to find the bright side of that," Jessica said.

Xao shrugged, "I could give Jaden anything he wants." I glared at him. "I could... but I won't."

Jaden then looked at Jessica. "Still... could you show everyone your powers?"

"Without blowing up the room." Xao put in.

Jessica looked over her shoulder. "Open the window."

Jaden did this and soon as he was out of the line of sight between Jessica and the window, Jessica threw her left hand out, pointing at the window. A single bolt of energy shot out of her finger and zipped out the window, the light from it leaving spots in my vision and the whole room rumbling with the small amount of thunder that came as an aftershock.

Raymie seemed to be next to her instantly. "WOW!" he shouted. "You're so awesome."

"Yes," Jessica said and nodded. "Yes, I am."

"Not that she doesn't have to work on the humility department," Xao said.

"I like er'," Raymie said. Jessica grinned as he gave her a quick side hug.

Jessica liked warm moments as much as the next person, but she loved to play more. Thus she took this as an invitation to tickle him and start another bout of fighting between her and the kids. Naturally, I had to shout, "I'll save you Jess!" and jump in. Almost immediately the two of us were pinned again and being subjected to wet loogies, tickles, bad jokes, anything to torment us that wouldn't actually hurt us. And Xao? He just sat up on the bed laughing. Yeah... big help.

Sure every so often one of the kids would try to force Xao into a fight or two during the day, and since he was bigger, older, smarter, more coordinated- you get the idea, he would pin them in no time flat. Jaden's strength did give him trouble a few times, but coordination beats raw werewolf strength. He just didn't seem to like being in the middle of the brawls as much as Jessica and I.

Truth is, after a few minutes though, I was pretty sure we were all getting a little exhausted.

As we returned to the game, Raymie, getting the dice for his next turn, looked at Xao. "Soooo... can you do anything special?"

Xao looked up from a book he had borrowed to read, grinned, and pointed his right fist in the direction of Raymie. A small metal band on Xao's wrist emitted a hum. Suddenly he opened his fist and a blast of some kind of force hit Raymie square in the chest and knocked him to the floor. "Xao!" I yelled.

However, Raymie just got up laughing. "He didn't hurt me." He rolled his turn and moved his pieces. "How about you Kyle? Can you do anything cool?"

"Um...well..." I scratched my head.

"I've been teaching him the lightning blade," Jessica said. "Using his sword he can throw a bolt a whole twenty feet."

"Nothing compared to what you can do with just your bare hands Jess," I said, looking down at my swords.

"You can still do that one trick, you know that thing where you plant electricity inside something and blow it up later... what do you call that?" asked Xao.

"Um...I'm still working on a name. I can pull it off three times in a row without burning out my powers these days, that's it though."

"So you can make lightning bombs?" asked Raymie. "Actually that's kinda cool."

"I like you," I told Raymie. "Don't change." He grinned.

"Can someone come down and play with me?" We all heard a voice. Sarah, again. The normal human girl that lived next door to Jaden's folks. No one liked her, but we all had to humor her. "Maybe one of the darkies?" she asked.

"The what?" asked Judith, closing her eyes.

"It's not really an insult," Jaden pointed out to her.

"Oh?" she said back, "when was the last time thee was called a "whitey"? Or the last time Kyle was called a... beige...ey?"

"Beigey?" Jessica repeated. "That sounds about right."

Jezreel finally growled at all of us. "Honestly, tis just a word. Need I remind you, on the issue of discrimination, everyone in this room is equal anyway? We are all hiding what we are from normal humans. Humoring that stupid girl is part of it so we do not end up looking like separatists or something."

"We can play jump rope!" Sarah shouted.

Jezreel nodded side to side. "I do like jump rope."

"Me too," said Raymie.

"Tis more fun than sitting around up here,"

"Yes, TIS!" Raymie shouted... I think that was a joke.

"Let's go Raymie." And out of the room, they went.

Truth was the game of aggravation was only a four-player game so with seven people it had been difficult to figure out who was going to play. Raymie and Jezreel had been hanging out with myself and Jaden. Now there was just the five of us and Xao had just been camping out on Jaden's bed watching us and reading a book anyway.

Thirty minutes later, between attempts by Jessica to distract her, Judith was winning. "One more piece Jessica!" Judith said, sticking her tongue out at Jessica.

Jessica was handed the dice and as she shook them she shook her head. "It's okay, I'm used to being the underdog," she said.

"Underdog?" asked Jaden. "You've got two pieces in Jess, I haven't even got one. I'm the underdog."

"As it should be," Jessica said, confidently.

"What?" Jaden asked. He looked over at me.

I looked back at him. "Don't look at me, I just hang out with the girl, no one understands her." Jessica grinned at me.

Two loud bangs were suddenly heard from the front of the house below us.

"What was that?" asked Judith.

Jaden's eyes went wide. "Um... I visit the range every day with my dad, and those-those were gunshots." Everyone in the room looked up. "C'mon!" He yelled as all five of us rushed out the door.

All the adults in the house were technically armed, but no one should have had a reason to actually use a weapon.

As we all ambled down the stairs and out the front door to see what was going on, I felt a knot in my stomach. Something wasn't right. Why weren't the three children outside making any noise themselves?

As we scrambled onto the porch, everyone froze. Everyone save for Jaden.

Just then... it was like the world was suddenly moving slower than it had ever moved in my life. I watched Jaden run full speed across the front yard screaming Raymie's name at the top of his lungs.

There in the middle of the yard was Raymie. He wasn't moving, he was just lying there. Jessica and Judith ran across my vision once Jaden was already by Raymie's side. Finally, I moved myself, but it still felt like I was moving slowly like I was trying to run in a pool.

At last at the scene of the fallen boy, reality sped back up and I dropped to my knees beside Jaden and Raymie. Raymie was not completely still. He was choking and making subtle noises, reaching up to his friend Jaden. Jaden held Raymie's head in his lap. Tears were streaming down Jaden's cheeks. "Raymie... hang on-" He looked up. "Kyle, you and Jessica..." he paused, he was crying even as he spoke. "You have some kind of healing drug right?"

"I forgot to bring-" I began.

"GET IT!" Jaden yelled.

I got up just as Xao came running up. "I got your bag, you have that tissue rebuilding drug in it right?" he asked.

I grabbed the bag and almost threw it to the ground. "A little, the ship from the homeworld is supposed to bring more, but there should still be enough..." I grabbed a small box of green vials out of my bag along with a syringe. I was about to load up the drug into the syringe when a hand touched mine.

It was Judith. "No... stop... look."

In the time it had taken me to go for the medicine, Raymie had completely stopped moving. I must have not heard when he stopped trying to speak.

Jaden looked at me and grabbed my hands. "Inject him, inject him, come on!"

"It's not a miracle drug Jaden," I said, tears coming to my own eyes. On the other side of Raymie's body, Jessica picked up the red-headed boy's wrist and felt for a pulse.

She shook her head. "Raymie is dead."

Jaden pushed back the hair on his friend's head, looking into his eyes. "Raymie?" Raymie didn't move. He didn't stir at all, he just laid there, looking up. Finally, I could take it no more. I reached over and closed Raymie's eyes. "He's not dead!" Jaden yelled. "It doesn't happen like this! It can't happen like this! We were just laughing upstairs half an hour ago. I didn't even see this happen. How can it happen like this?"

"How can what happen?" I asked.

"How can he... how can he just die?" Jaden shook his head. "No, just no. Judith and I are gonna spar tomorrow and he's gonna be there cheering me on and making smart-aleck comments. That's just how it's gonna be... that's how it's gonna be... tell me that's how it's gonna be!"

"I-I can't." I dropped to my knees again. Jaden was right. How had this happened? It was all so fast- like none of this was real. I had seen people pass away before, but never right in front of me. I thought there would have been last words or... I don't know, something.

Raymie was dead, and that was it.

Well, of course, no, that wasn't it. The rest of the situation Judith pointed out. "Um, guys... where is Jezreel?" Everyone but Jaden stood up, looking around. She was right, there was no sign of Jezreel or Sarah. Would they have just gone home without telling us?

I looked back to the house to see a large man standing over Jaden. His father, Allen, had come out to investigate as well. I was about to ask what took him so long, but I saw the shotgun in his hands. He must have taken the time to grab it to defend everyone, maybe hope Jess and I could have things well in hand for a little while. Allen just stood over his son with his weapon hanging loosely in his grip. He then knelt down next to his boy.

"Jaden?" he asked. Jaden shook his head at first, crying freely now. "I'm right here Jaden." Jaden let go of his friend's head and turned so suddenly it almost startled me. In an instant he was hugging his father, sobbing openly.

For his part, Allen looked at me and Jess, swallowed, and then went to hold his son. "You two are keeping watch I guess that means I can just... be with my son for... oh my..." The man suddenly stopped talking and stared at the body of Raymie, like something in his mind had snapped and he couldn't even believe what he was looking at. He moved to talk a few times, but the words looked to just catch in his throat.

Myself, it was all I could do to not turn and look away, I felt... I didn't know exactly what I was feeling but... I... I didn't like it. Like... I couldn't describe it.

"No...no, no, no, no, no..." Judith started saying, spinning around. "Where is she? Was no one out here?" She searched the house porches around. "No I guess that makes sense, no one would kill a kid with people looking... so... so... oh god- Where is Jezreel?!" she finally yelled the last part.

"I don't know-" I started.

"You're a Finder, find her!" Judith yelled.

Jessica stood up. "She's right Kyle, Jezreel and Sarah are both missing."

"Maybe they just ran away?" I asked.

"Sarah maybe," Jessica said. "But banshees train all their lives to fight, you know that."

I looked around. "That doesn't matter. You and I both know how this works Jess, you can train for combat for a hundred years, nothing compares to the real thing. She still could have gotten scared and ran away."

"I'm not accepting that Kyle," Jessica pulled a small compass-like object from my bag. "You know we have this, we're not helpless."

"The DNA scanner?" I asked.

"Yes the DNA scanner, now get me something of Jezreel's," Jessica demanded.

"Jessica, nothing here belongs to Jezreel, she was just visiting," I said.

Jessica bit her lip and looked around. Finally, she grabbed the panicking Judith. "Do you have anything that belongs to her?"

Judith pulled a locket out of her pocket. "She gave it to me last year."

I shook my head. "So what?" I asked. "If you've been carrying that for a year the majority of the DNA on it will be yours not Jezreel's. The scanner tracks people based on majority DNA, not original ownership."

"Well... maybe Jezreel's present," Judith said.

Jaden was finally standing on his own two feet, and, breathing slowly, spoke up. "I can go get that."

"That won't work either," I said. "She probably only bought it a week or so ago and there's no guarantee she touched it any more than anyone else in that amount of time."

"Well, I don't see you coming up with anything!" Jessica yelled at me.

"That's because there's nothing to come up with Jessica. Like I said she probably just ran off."

"Well then-" Jessica began again.

"Guys I hate to say this," Allen interrupted. "But missing friends, dead friends... we're still a secret society. I'll call a banshee hunting party and get them on the case of Jezreel and Sarah. Raymie still isn't a normal child. We have to get him out of sight before the police get here and try to examine the body. They will be arriving very soon." He picked up the body of Raymie. "I'm going to go burn the body, Jaden, your mother will tell you and everyone else the stories you're to tell the police. Get a shovel." Jaden looked up at his father. "I'm sorry Jaden. But we all know what could happen if people find out about us. The Salem Witch trials, the Inquisition... I'm sorry."

Jaden closed his eyes tightly, but then finally turned around to run for the garage. "But what about Jezreel?" asked Judith.

Allen looked around. "Kyle is probably right, but as I said, we're getting a hunting party. Get inside, talk to Nadine, my wife. She'll know what you need to say to the police. Now go."